Wives and Sexual Fulfillment

Published December 19, 1985. There is so much said and written about sexuality in marriage today that it is often contradictory and confusing. Take, for instance, wives and sexual fulfillment. Do they experience it or not?

Some people still quote the Kinsey studies conducted during the 1950s. In that report Kinsey stated that 25 percent of wives did not have any kind of sexual fulfillment during the first five years of marriage. In addition, he indicated that 10 percent of wives never experienced any degree of sexual satisfaction during all their years of married life. Are those statistics still accurate?

Then there are the findings of sex therapists today, who indicate that about 50 percent of married couples have difficulty with the sexual aspects of marriage during some stage of their relationship.

Redbook Magazine, however, conducted a study of wives and sexual satisfaction a few years ago that produced conflicting results. Over 100,000 wives wrote in, and 71 percent reported their sexual satisfaction to be “very happy or above average,” 19 percent of the wives reported their sexual satisfaction to be “about average,” and 10 percent of the women thought their sexual satisfaction to be “below average.”

A similar study by Tim and Beverly LaHaye of 1,705 Christian wives was also interesting. They found that, in regards to sexual satisfaction, 81 percent of the Christian wives reported they were “very happy or above average,” 10 percent were “about average” while 9 percent reported they were “below average.”

Marriage counselor and educator David Mace has recently commented on contemporary dissatisfaction with the sexual dimension of marriage. He notes the following in his book “Close Companions:”

“In my earlier years as a marriage counselor, couples couldn’t enjoy their sex life because they were ignorant and embarrassed about their sexuality, and this created anxiety that paralyzed a natural function. Now I find by contrast that couples know so much, and expect so much from themselves and each other, that they have become obsessed by what has been called ‘performance anxiety,’ which again robs a natural function of its spontaneity. So we still have a good deal of sexual dysfunction in marriage, but for quite different reasons.”

Not long ago I was counseling a young husband and wife who had been married less than three years. They reported that she had little, if any, fulfillment in the sexual aspect of marriage. It was not a matter of not loving each other. But some well-meaning older person, in whom they had confidence, told the couple that (quoting the Kinsey report) she likely wouldn’t find anything fulfilling for the first five years of marriage and would have to “tough it out” for two more years. Such advice was less than helpful for the young couple.

What do you make of all this? Does sexual fulfillment develop over time, and is it only attained after several years of marriage? Perhaps some of you women readers would like to share your thoughts (anonymously, if you desire) on this topic.

So let’s conduct another marriage poll. Write in, nameless if necessary, and answer two questions. From a wife’s perspective: (1) What contributes to satisfactory sexual relations in marriage? And (2) What contributes to unsatisfactory sexual relationships in marriage?

Unlike the Redbook Magazine study, I do not expect 100,000 letters. Slightly less than that will do.